Dear Friends,
In this edition of the School of Drama Academic e-Newsletter you will meet my successor as Executive Director, Dr. Todd London. After twenty years at the helm, I am retiring and do so with pleasure knowing the School will be in Todd’s exceptionally capable hands. It has been an honor and a rewarding enterprise to work with our multitudes of courageous students, and to lead an extraordinary group of faculty and staff as we have striven to maintain the traditions of excellence at the School of Drama as established by Glenn Hughes in 1941. I am proud to believe I have contributed to innovations as well.
A recent feat is the establishment of an Innovation Fund which allows our students to make theatre with boundary-pushing artists from across the nation. In this newsletter is a preview of our upcoming Innovation Fund production: Cold Empty Terrible – which promises to be an exciting project in devising theatre led by Whit MacLaughlin and his New Paradise Laboratories collaborators.
We are proud to share the news of a talented alumna from the MFA in Directing Program, Lydia Fort, who has a new job as Executive Artistic Director of Mo’oelo. I vividly remember her ambitious and accomplished thesis production of The Good Person of Setzuan, so I was not surprised when she was tapped for this job.
Nothing warms a teacher’s heart so much as hearing from former students. I deeply appreciate hearing from many of you. My future plans include some part-time teaching for the UW and freelance costume design – and of course a season subscription to the School of Drama!
Best wishes to all,
Sarah Nash Gates